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Hunters are stalking their prey in Penn's Woods as the various stages of deer season unfold. Now some hunters and hunting groups plan to stalk the courts in pursuit of expanded hunting.

Like many states, Pennsylvania allows hunting six days a week, but generally not on Sundays. Some hunters claim that violates their rights. Having failed in the Legislature to change the law, largely because overwhelming numbers of Pennsylvanians oppose Sunday hunting, those hunters hope to overturn the ban in court.

Hunting interests claim that opening Sundays to hunting would produce an economic benefit to the state and the state government, citing a 2005 study to that effect. But the real-world experience over the past decade is that hunting has declined in popularity. Pennsylvania routinely sold more than 1 million licenses a year, but that steadily has declined to about 930,000 this year, including junior licenses. Opening Sunday to hunting isn't likely to change that. Rather, it simply would provide another day for hunters who likely would buy a license, in any case.

The Sunday hunting ban still leaves the woods open to hunters six days a week in each season. And it leaves one day for people to safely access woodlands for non-hunting activities. About 11 percent of Pennsylvanians hunt, but about 37 percent use the great outdoors for other forms of recreation.

This is a matter for legislation rather than litigation. Hunters have abundant opportunities to engage in the activity; courts should simply leave it to the Legislature to determine whether a seventh day is warranted.

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